Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-02-19
ABOLISHING AN OFFICE.

storm.
AB0LIsHING AN OFFICE.
1t is proposed by committees of Con-
gress to abolish the Office of Surveyors
General, to place all the Office records in
the General Land Office at Washington,
and TO put upon the Commissioner all the
duties of Surveyor-G General. 1t is a sweep
ing and unjust proposition, and will give
greater power to one official-and that to
dangerous extent In some of the older
States the need for the Office of Surveyor
General has ceased-not so upon the Pa
cific coast. The argument for abolition in
the older States is, in fact, strong reason
for the retention here The facts we pro-
pose to hereafter present statistically to
fully fortify this declaration. Wise govern
ment places itself as near as is possible TO
the people The conservation Of their
convenience is its chief aim. To remove
an Office three thousand miles away from
the people who have most TO do with it,
will amount to the poorer to absolute pro-
hibition of valuable rights, putting them
to unbearable cost, and tending to drive
them away from settlement upon the pub
lie lands, agricultural, timber and mineral.
1t is all well enough to pursue economic
ways, but it is an axiom that to spend
wisely is truer economy than to save
merely for savings sake. 1t is wisdom to
expend the peoples money for the peoples
good-wiser far than to hoard it, or waste
time in theorizing about the disposition of
surplus.
The Office of Surveyor-General was and
is needed one here. That it has been so
useful to the people and has so conserved
their welfare, as well as protected the in
terests of the Federal Government, ought
to be sufficient reason for its continuance
until it can be afirmatively and clearly
shown that it is neither useful nor protect
i've. Now, as matter of fact, while the
Office of Surveyor-General protects the
actual settler of limited means, it also
serves the Government against land and
timber thieves, and the mere gamblers in
public lands, mineral tracts, swamp lands,
etc. To abandon the Office, therefore in
California is to invite all manner of fraud,
oppression and outrage in connection with
public lands, while the requirement of
homesteads, the fixing of boundaries and
the disposal of Government lands accord
ing to the spirit of the law, would become
greatly involved, if not be wholly defeated.
In no section more than in mineral belts
and swamp-land districts would greater
injury be done, or greater confusion follow.
As the San Francisco Alta well says upon
this subject:
If the bill pass as recommended by the Con-
mittee on Appropriations OF the House, patents
for mines cannot be obtained for years after
final compliance with the laws governing them;
surveys of public and private grants viii
take months OF preparation i ere sur
land contests with the State authorI-
ties viii cost more money than the land in
controversy is actually worth, and the rich man
every poor one striving to gain his rights. Con-
slider what the expense would be, should the
bill become law, of special deputy commits
sioner being sent from Washington every time
least four q month";; surely; no man of moderate
means could stand the burden, or the onehalf
OF it.
We have of public land in California
nearly 100000 acres Of unsurveyed, and
half as much the bounds Of which must be
rectifed as settlement proceeds. The
records of such vast area of public land
in Washington would prove an inconve-
nienee to the people of this coast that
would amount to cruelty. To consolidate
the Offices for California and Nevada, as is
proposed, also would be simply wrong
by slight degree removed from transfer
of the records to the national
capital. The infection Of cost upon the
people of this State would still De great,
and the inconvenience would be such as to
practically debar them from the benefits
of the office. To truly economic it were
better to give the Suryeyor-General his
original authority. He is the bond officer
who is held responsible, and upon him
should deyolve all duty attacking to such
responsibility. As the practice now is
and which has gradually grown to the
present proportions-the special agents
sent out by the Land Office cost the
| Government in California one-third as
much as the Surveyor-General's Office. If
the Surveyor is given his full right, he can
do the duty of these special agents, as the
law contemplates he should do. The
archives in the Surveyor-Generafs Office
here are of the utmost value and impor-
lance, and affect all the Mexican grants in